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<title>The Life and Death of the 3DS by I Miss My Zeus-Class Fusion Pistol (MeltyKarasu)</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26567947">The Life and Death of the 3DS</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeltyKarasu/pseuds/I%20Miss%20My%20Zeus-Class%20Fusion%20Pistol'>I Miss My Zeus-Class Fusion Pistol (MeltyKarasu)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 09:08:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>952</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26567947</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeltyKarasu/pseuds/I%20Miss%20My%20Zeus-Class%20Fusion%20Pistol</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>I consider the 3DS's life in wake of its discontinuation.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Life and Death of the 3DS</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>On September 16, 2020, Nintendo announced that the 3DS family of consoles was officially discontinued. It put me in a nostalgic mood.</p><p>Here are four and a half anecdotes about the Nintendo 3DS:</p><p>
  <b>Ocarina of Time 3D</b>
</p><p>My parents bought a 3DS for me not long after the price drop. I did chores in exchange for it. Most of that was gathering any markers around the house my baby sister could use to write on the walls. </p><p>It was a black 3DS. It didn’t feel substantially different from the DSi I’d had, aside from the gloss finish. </p><p><em> Ocarina of Time 3D </em> was the first 3DS game I remember playing. I rushed through the first dungeon, the Deku Tree, in a half hour, as I’d played through the first third of the original <em> Ocarina of Time </em> when it’d come to the Wii’s Virtual Console. </p><p>I was attending a charter school that had promised a lot and half-delivered. My art teacher was an Italian woman. By the time the second half of the last term rolled around, she didn’t care. I brought my 3DS to school every day and played <em> Ocarina of Time </em> in the back of the class. I remember beating the Water Temple this way. </p><p>I beat Ocarina of Time a second time sometime later, looking at my save data. It looks almost identical to my first, save that the old one uses an old and embarrassing handle. </p>
<hr/><p>
  <b>Fire Emblem Awakening</b>
</p><p>I’d never played a tactics role-playing game before <em> Fire Emblem Awakening. </em> I saw a print ad for it in a Game Informer (the last I ever received). It had bold anime-style art. I played the demo. I hungered for more. </p><p>The local Gamestop didn’t have it. I used my $40 to purchase two $20 eShop cards and purchased it digitally. I still have my save data from that first playthrough. It boasts that I played it for eighty hours. I don’t remember much else aside from the fact that it was thoroughly enjoyable and also I was an absolute idiot when it came to <em> Fire Emblem. </em></p><p>I began to consider myself a <em> Fire Emblem </em>fan. I joined the /r/fireemblem subreddit. Someone proposed an offtopic subreddit. I joined it. I made a Skype account for a group chat they had going. I got involved in a lot of drama that I’m sure felt very important at the time. I left the community. </p><p>When I returned, I found one of my friends had left and deleted all their accounts. I tried fruitlessly to find them for a time. I don’t know where they are now. </p>
<hr/><p>
  <b>Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS</b>
</p><p>After consuming my first <em> Fire Emblem </em> content, I was curious about the series, which led to me playing some of the Japan-only titles and playing as Marth in <em> Super Smash Bros. Brawl. </em> I learned about <em> Project M </em> and installed it. I spent many hours getting better at Marth. I learned how to play as Marth in <em> Melee. </em>I attended a couple tournaments, but didn’t do very well. I subscribed to /r/smashbros on reddit. Every day Masahiro Sakurai posted a new picture concerning items, characters, or stages from the upcoming Smash game. </p><p>My hype reached critical levels when they announced that, alongside E3, you could go to select Best Buys and play the new <em> Smash </em>. I went to Best Buy, but by the time I arrived, they’d cut off the line. </p><p>While I was there, I preordered <em> Smash </em> for my 3DS in order to get a commemorative coin. </p><p>When it came out, I played it for many hours. I unlocked every character. I was stunned at how well it ran, although its load times chugged along.</p><p>I attended another Smash tournament that fall, after the Wii U version came out. I played it. I went back to Melee. I liked Melee more. </p>
<hr/><p>
  <b>Fire Emblem Fates</b>
</p><p>By the time <em> Fire Emblem 14 </em> (later <em> if </em> and even later <em> Fates) </em> was revealed, I had a job. I worked at a movie theater. I cleaned the auditoriums after each show. I earned seven dollars and fifty cents an hour. It was not very rewarding work in retrospect. The December before <em> Fire Emblem Fates </em> came out, the first of the new batch of <em> Star Wars </em> films came out. I got blisters on my hands from the broom I used. </p><p>I preordered the special edition of <em> Fire Emblem Fates </em> after someone said on a Discord server that they’d run out of special editions on Amazon. I hurriedly checked Amazon; they were in stock. I panic-preordered it. The person who’d said that was European and <em> their </em> Amazon had run out, as it turns out. </p><p>It arrived on my doorstep on a cold February day when I got home from school. </p><p>Having ordered the special edition, I’d been promised choice of all three major story routes, following a few hours of tutorial and expository worldbuilding. </p><p>By the time the third and final DLC route arrived for non-special edition customers, I hadn’t beat a single route.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <b>Fire Emblem Echoes/Epilogue</b>
</p><p>I preordered <em> Fire Emblem Echoes </em> on Amazon. I did not get the special edition. I had not beat <em> Fates. </em> Years later, after the 3DS has been discontinued, I still have yet to finish more than one route of <em> Fire Emblem Fates. </em> I did not buy <em> Fire Emblem: Three Houses </em>. </p><p>The end of the 3DS marks the end of Nintendo’s dedicated handheld lineage, although the philosophy behind it continues in the Switch’s clever use of existing and affordable technology. </p><p>I replayed <em> Ocarina of Time 3D </em> last week. This time I tried to beat it with three hearts. The day after I beat it, I awoke to articles discussing the 3DS’s discontinuation. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>(With apologies to Tim Rogers, because I cribbed the structure of this from his piece "Growing Up Sixty-Four".)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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